What type is this person?

[Slacker]

That means she and her husband have a conflict relationship? That would explain the divorce but not the 13 years of marriage.

Though it certainly has not been a happy marriage for either of them. They've almost divorced so many times I can't count.

My husband says he'll believe they're divorcing this time when he sees divorce papers signed. I hope they do divorce because they're both miserable.

[Polly_G]

Yeah, that's really hard. I can't picture my parents ever getting a divorce. I can't really picture my mom letting it happen either. When she got married it was for life and the same as my father.

They may have their conflicts but they make up for each other's faults pretty well. I do wish my mom wasn't quite so hard on my dad though.

When it comes to intertype relations I think there are a lot of things that come into play. Like what type you are, financial factors, environmental factors...all kinds of stuff.

I think for someone like myself, who is ENTp, being in a supervisory relationship feels very abusive because we value our independence and don't like to control or be controlled. To me the supervisory attitutude in a relationship feels like someone is trying to control me with their views as to what I should or should not be doing.

My dad, ISTp, can blow it off and even defend his supervisor whereas I fight it tooth and nail the whole way. Instead I try to teach my supervisor not to supervise me and it doesn't really work all that well.

[Expat]

Right, I'd like to discuss this further, because I see some inconsistencies in what's been said.

In particular, I see disagreements between myself and Implied & Cone on the nature of , which I'll try to clarify.

1) Is an ESTp like an ESFj?

@Polly:

First you said :

She actually sounds typically ESTp to me. Their decisions are usually made very impulsively...I'm not sure what motivates that but sometimes it looks like emotions of wanting to fullfill something.

Which I agree with, up to a point. What motivates them impulsively is .

But then later you say:

Well, not to confuse the topic anymore than it already is. When you said she can't keep a secret and even embellishes, I immediately thought of my ESFj mom.

Do you mean to say that an ESTp - - is similar to an ESFj - ? That does not make much sense.

Further, what you said here:

She was very impulsive when we were growing up. We went on a lot of spur of the moment day trips and she even yanked me out of school before to go see a movie together.

This is socionics irrational, not ESFj. My own mother and an ex gf are textbook ESFjs (in the sense of being like the big profiles in socionics.org) and neither of them would ever do anything like it.

My personal opinion is that your mother is ESFp, and that in typing her as ESFj you were giving too much weight to perceived J-ness in the MBTI sense.

Can it be? Please consider that as an option.

2) Not being able to keep a secret - what does it mean?

I think everyone is giving too much weight to what I consider a small detail:

Personally, I don't dislike any ESFp, I just wouldn't tell them a secret or trust them in that sense but for the most part I find them harmless and really fun to be around.

And no I would NEVER tell her a secret. Not only would she tell everyone, she'd embellish it first.

Well, not to confuse the topic anymore than it already is. When you said she can't keep a secret and even embellishes, I immediately thought of my ESFj mom.

but i can't see ESFp. even sensory subtype. they're actually quite good with secrets, according to socionics.org and personal experience.

Honestly my opinion on this is:

a) you're all making too much of this "can't keep a secret" trait, which can be associated to being irrational (ie acting on impulse), or strong (personal ethics that say it's ok to pass on secrets to trusted people) or very weak (lack of concern with personal ethics) or indeed perhaps (telling secrets as part of bonding with a person etc).

Again, my ESFj mother and ex gf would never tell secrets. I also know ESFps who don't, either. So I really don't think this means anything in terms of typing. It might point towards ESTp if all the rest also did.


3) An with weak ?!

On the other hand, Nicky said this:

This is not at all like her:

Quote:

5. Adherent of order. He loves to dress up and takes good care of his appearance. He can't tolerate any disorder or uncertainty in everything from his appearance to his garage and cubbyhole. He does not wish to adapt to the tastes of others. Compliments on his appearance are in vain - he believes he knows better how he looks. He takes not of not just spiritual qualities of his partner, but physical as well.

Come on. This is a textbook description of , and Nicky has just said that this is not at all like her friend. None of the ESFjs I know lack these characteristic. So we'd have an - ESFj who lacks ? That makes no sense.

In comparison to this, the small detail about not keeping secrets has no significance - even if it were a typical ESFj trait, which it isn't.


4) Personal relationships:

Now, in terms of interpersonal relationships.

I have no doubt that Nicky is ENFp, and she has typed her sister as INFj. Then she says:

That would explain why she and I get along pretty darn well, but she and my INFj sister HATE each other.

If the woman in question is ESFj:

Nicky would be her beneficiary
Her sister would be her illusionary partner

Which does not fit well what Nicky just wrote.

Now, if she were ENFj, as also mentioned:

Nicky would be her quasi-identical
Her sister would be her contrary

Which does not fit, either.

Now, if she were ESFp:

Nicky would be her look-alike
Her sister would be her supervisee

Aha, that does fit very well what Nicky said.

Even better than ESTp, where Nicky would be super-ego, and her sister, conflict.

From this point of view, ESFp is the best option.

Regarding her husband, an ISFj:

He says she's dishonest and he can't ever predict what she'll do. He said he doesn't trust her.

This is so much what a rational would say about an irrational, especially in a mirror relationship. Again, ESFp. It's not very important on its own. I just don't think that an ISFj could call an ESFj unpredictable. Perhaps the other way around.


5) on the nature of in ESFjs

The major point of disagreement between me and Implied & Cone seems to be over the interpretation of this:

She doesn't seem to be able to read people, that is she sometimes thinks people are angry at her when they aren't, or agree with her when they disagree.

All my experience with ESFjs confirms what socionics.org says about in them.

According to Stratiyevskaya's description of in ESFjs:

Hugo magnificently sees the nature of man - precisely through the emotions expressed by it. This makes possible for it to be by excellent psychologist to very accurately evaluate the emotional state of man and deeply to it to be anxious the ethical insight of Hugo is wholly built on the skill to understand the motives of behavior of the people through the emotions expressed by them. The nature of the intentions of man of Hugo magnificently is understood according to the expression of his eyes, according to the nature of his smile. Hugo magnificently sees in the man his nature and his ethical potential.

According to functional ESFj description by Grey:

The perception of emotions in kineto-treydika is developed extreme. The moods of others quietly are observed and are studied. First of all interest the form of their manifestation and concrete external reasons, into the second- conditionality of these emotions by the nature of man. Moreover the latter KT examines somewhat worse. Its own emotion- bright, juicy, diverse and opened (although they can magnificently be hidden).

Right now I couldn't open the translations of the others (Gulenko etc) but they all say pretty much the same.

ESFjs are emotional, but they are also able to read others' emotions and react to them accordingly. They are not people who have as chief characteristic what Nicky described, of not reading others' emotions well.

is not primarily about expressing your own deeply felt emotions, regardless of what others are feeling, but about expressing - in a quasi-rational way - those emotions that you feel are reacting to others' own emotions.

ESFj's dominant function is actually - + , thus described:

-Fe
understanding the emotional state of the group of people, influence on the mood of groups - from the small to the large.
the skill to force man emotionally to be opened, to appear its feelings through the demonstration of its negative emotions - to mountain, grief, melancholy, emotional decrease, depression, weeping, tear, dissatisfaction, pessimism, poor mood, the experience of misfortune.
the skill to find individual approach to the groups of people, to play "on the necessary strings" of human passions. the open expression of its emotions, the demonstration of its feelings, epatazh, tendency toward the theatricality - gallery play in the broad sense.
sensitiveness, drops in the moods, fervency, fanaticism on a global scale.
the creation of the emotional atmosphere in the large association, the society through the forcing of situation, the "electrization". Control of emotionalism and power engineering of the associations.
tendency toward the oratorical skill, artistic taste (entire spectrum of intonations, expressive pauses, significant views, rich mimicry) and intrigues.


+Fi
the moral and moral estimation of behavior of individual person, his judgments.
the skill to understand, to estimate interrelations between themselves and by another person.
the rules of behavior, accepted in the relations between the concrete people.
the emotional estimation of its relation - sympathy, antipathy, confidence, admiration and so forth, etc. - to another person, his open expression.
manipulation on relations with the concrete person, the skill to erect relations on any psychological distance, to create and to impose its standards of behavior. tendency toward the humanist ideals - philanthropy, mercy, good, pity, warm contact, friendship and so forth, etc.
tendency toward the mutual confidence, a feeling of debt, responsibility with respect to the individual people.
generally - the attitude of close people, ethical interaction with the familiar people, the morals of the connect together people.

I know this also contains inclinations towards theatrics, but I'm comparing this with what Nicky said of someone who doesn't seem ever to read other people's emotions:

6) Conclusion

I think that what Nicky described of her friends and eliminate ESFj. Her characteristics point towards -dominant, probably ESFp but still possibly ESTp.

ESFp is also what fits her relations with Nicky and her sister better.

Finally, I suggest to Polly to consider that her mother might be ESFp, too, rather than ESFj.

I spent more time on this than I had anticipitated, but it was an interesting exercise.

[Polly_G]

@Expat...its possible my mom is an ESFp. I do see a lot of similarities there. I wasn't really comparing ESFjs and ESTps with my comment. Its just what was said later i.e. "even embellishes" that just made me immediately think of my mom.

I only know 2 people for sure from work who are ESFp and the rest are just suspected ESFps. The differences I see between them is my mom seems more serving. She seems to really place herself below others and is content to make other people's realizations happen.

She was and is the organizer of events in the family. She makes sure we stay connected because without her, many of us really would drift apart.

I could just be seeing her from a daughter's perspective though which is making her seem more ESFj to me.

For a long time we blamed her embellishing on her hearing. My mom is mostly deaf so she does miss parts of conversations and just tends to fill them in with other details. This might be an ESFp trait or just that she is hiding she can't hear well.

I don't really know any other ESFjs well enough to compare her to. The intertype relations do seem to describe our relationship pretty good though if she is an ESFj.

My mom is so sensitive that its really hard to correct any of her behavior but for the most part its good and she really does have a heart of gold so we just take the bad with the good.

[Expat]

@Polly

I don't have a firm opinion about your mother's type. But I had the impression that the perceived similarities between her and Nicky's friend derailed the discussion of the latter's type towards ESFj, which led to IMO far more importaint points being overlooked, such as Nicky's friend's lack of . My aim was to bring the discussion back on track, as I see it.

Regarding your relationship with your mother, I think parental relationships complicate things. If your mother is ESFj, you have a relationship of activity, which is better than super-ego if she's ESFp. Fair enough.

But my own mother is ESFj, and I also have a better relationship with her than super-ego would lead one to expect. I think that because of her I get along better with ESFjs than would be expected, even though almost all my other socionics relationships are confirmed in practice.

So perhaps something similar is working there - - just a suggestion.

[Slacker]

Thanks for all that Expat!

OK so here's the relationship we have. She's my sister in law, married to my brother of this thread: http://the16types.info/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3108

Which means my ENTj mom is her activity partner. My mom and my sister-in-law do not get along *at all* though that could be because my mom doesn't think my sister-in-law is good enough for my brother. I love my mom but truth be told she can be a bit snobby and she is particularly motherly toward my brother. Maybe that's why my sister-in-law and my mom don't get along - it could be hard to have a mother-in-law who is so close to your husband.

I didn't want to confuse the two threads and have people make assumptions based upon what I'd written in the thread about my brother, but maybe that helps clear things up? Probably not. *sigh* But what you've written makes sense. And my sister-in-law really does have a theatrical way about her.

I wondered how my brother and sister-in-law could have a conflict relationship. I mean they've been married for a long time. And they really did get along when they first got together. They fight constantly now, and really nasty pull-no-punches kind of fighting, but it wasn't always like that.

[Polly_G]

Yeah, to be honest I don't over think it too much. If I feel a profile fits I go with it but I don't really use it to judge that person's behavior so in that sense it makes no difference.

I use it more as a tool of understanding. So many things can affect behavior that to expect someone to fit stereotypically into their type I think is more rare than common. If there is someone I really want to communicate with and am having problems, I will think of type at that point and try a different approach. Its actually been a really useful tool for that because even if you have their type wrong, that different approach might work. Before MBTI and socionics, I was a lot more hit and miss when these issues popped up with certain types.

Some people in the forums question whether I might be an ENTj. I just don't see it. Yes, I might act ENTjish at times but that has a lot to do with environment. Just because its not natural for someone to function in a certain way according to their type doesn't mean they can't or won't act that way.

Basically, my point is, that because of this kind of lazy approach to typing I could very well be wrong.

[Smilingeyes]

Why would anyone think you're an ENTj? You're one of the nicest examples in every sense of the word of an ENTp I know. You go girl!

[Polly_G]

hehe thanks smiling. I'm not really swayed by others opinons when it comes to my type. Work paid for a professional to type me in MBTI and the description in socionics is similar in many ways. The differences aren't enough to make me doubt that it doesn't transfer.

It's actually kind of interesting that in many of the different tests I do I come out with an entpish description even if it isn't a socionics/myers-briggs.

I even did this one called "The Cube". Its complicated and a friend of mine is really into it. You get this very vague scenario and you fill in the blanks. The description they provided me after they analyzed the story I came up with sounded pretty much bang on to the socionics ENTp description which I thought was kind of neat.

The cube in my story was a rubiks cube which indicated I was a clever problem solver. He did it on a bunch of us and some had huge cubes, some were small, some were transparent, some were metal...it was just cool to see what different stories people came up with and what it said about them.

There's a lot more to it than that but it would be neat to hear if anyone else did it and what they got out of it.

[Raver]

I don't have a scanner and I don't think I have a picture on my computer but I'll check. The answer is no though. LOL. She's usually got a crafty look to her eyes and a mischievous smile.

Does she look anything like... this?

http://www.okcupid.com/profile?tuid=...50304837843991

LMAO WTF, did you read the description in her profile?? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Here is one thing she wrote that I found hilarious:

YOU JOINED THIS SITE IN ORDER TO TELL ME ALL ABOUT THE GIRTH, LENGTH, WEIGHT, TEXTURE, PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE, CURRENT COLOR, CORE TEMPERATURE, VELOCITY, AND HAIRINESS/LACK THEREOF OF YOUR THROBBING MONSTER COCK, AS WELL AS THE AMOUNT OF DAMAGE IT CAN DO TO MY EAGER YOUNG VAGINA. PLEASE MESSAGE ME IF YOU ARE TWICE MY AGE AND HAVE NO PICTURES AND AN INCOMPLETE PROFILE AND ARE "MARRIED BUT LOOKING" AND WOULD LIKE TO INFORM ME ON THE AFOREMENTIONED CRITERIA

[Expat]

Which means my ENTj mom is her activity partner. My mom and my sister-in-law do not get along *at all* though that could be because my mom doesn't think my sister-in-law is good enough for my brother. I love my mom but truth be told she can be a bit snobby and she is particularly motherly toward my brother. Maybe that's why my sister-in-law and my mom don't get along - it could be hard to have a mother-in-law who is so close to your husband.

Well, first, I'm not sure that activity relationships are very good ones in the longer term; and if your mother is your brother's dual, she might have another reason to be skeptical of your sister-in-law. Also, I think such a -focused person as your sister-in-law, whether ESTp or ESFp, would eventually get on the nerves of most ENTjs.

I wondered how my brother and sister-in-law could have a conflict relationship. I mean they've been married for a long time. And they really did get along when they first got together. They fight constantly now, and really nasty pull-no-punches kind of fighting, but it wasn't always like that.

Wait - - why conflict?

Your ISFj brother's conflict is the ENTp. If your sister-in-law is ESFp, they'd be mirrors; if ESTp, your brother supervises her. If she were ESFj, they'd be contraries.

In my opinion, what you described of their marriage makes sense for both ESFp and ESTp. My personal theory is that ISFjs sometimes are attracted to strong types when they mistake it for their dual-seeking function, . However, a point arrives when the ISFj notices that what he "thought" was was actually all along. That is when the ISFj concludes that s/he "can't trust" the ESXp. I have seen that happening myself.

[Slacker]

Sorry - I meant "contrary"